


Integrity

by distractionpie



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Before the invention of radio-edits that's for sure, Communication, Established Relationship, Fun, M/M, Vague Time Period
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:27:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22906234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distractionpie/pseuds/distractionpie
Summary: Geralt's becoming used to finding himself written into song. But the details of the latest ditty surprise him and a talk with Jaskier is in order.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 2
Kudos: 155





	Integrity

**Author's Note:**

> A silly little fic to get a feel for writing them. Jaskier is a delight, getting anything other than 'hmmm' or 'fuck' out of Geralt takes tricks though.

One bard is trouble enough.

So while there are songs being sung by the young man in the corner of the tavern, Geralt focuses on his ale. Jaskier is running some errand in the village proper, something to do with the tension in his lute strings which Geralt hadn’t been able to fathom even in the brief period he’d spent trying to understand Jaskier’s dramatic complaints about the apparent trouble he was having, and so he’s enjoying the chance to enjoy, if not quiet, then at least the chance not to have to form thoughts on what he’s listening to.

Or at least, he’s trying to.

But Jaskier has instilled in him the terrible habit of keeping half an ear on the musician, which apparently applies even when that musician isn’t him, and so he cannot help but notice when the song starts to sound familiar.

Not the tune or the lyrics, but the subject matter.

Namely, because it’s himself.

And it’s not that old ‘toss a coin’ ditty Jaskier had come up with shortly after their first meeting, which Geralt has grown used to following him about.

No, this song is new and the events it details are far more recent.

Even that isn’t wholly shocking. He’s always been subject to rumour and gossip and although Jaskier was the first to put it to song, he’s not the only one to realise that a Witcher made for a fruitful subject, although no other bard had met with Jaskier’s success because third-hand gossip didn’t draw the same audience as a tale from one direct from the source.

Except unlike his jobs, this song depicts events far less public that monster slaying.

It is, in many way, a simple sort of song, the kind which was sung in a hundred taverns about the exploits of a hundred men – the subject not nearly so important as the detailed terms with which he was described and the titillation the listeners gained from imaging themselves in his place. A stranger who heard it would likely think it little more than one of those tales, but with the name switched out for a little relevance.

It’s not.

It’s far too specific.

Everything from the weather to the colour of the sheets brings to mind a week not long ago – one he remembers well, notably for being a rare few days of rest before being spurred onward by the pull of something he refused to accept was destiny rather than merely his own temperament demanding occupation, but more memorable for the fact that between an unexpected storm and a provident inn, he’d several days spent with Jaskier’s uninterrupted company.

Which means the events ought to be private, not spilling from the lips of some stranger.

The tune was the sort a man was likely to catch himself whistling on the road and the various ways it had rhymed its way around the word girth would ensure that the song went down a storm in taverns while still being acceptable in at least the more casually tempered courts and Geralt already had a sinking feeling that it might dog him for years, intimate detail and all, as the singer continues:

_“—and with skirt over head,_

_she near fell from his bed,_

_but cried—"_

Geralt frowns.

_Who the hell was this supposed woman?_

Leaning up against the bar, he listens as the young man continued his tune, wondering if he’d misunderstood. But after a chorus of testimony’s to his virility the second verse is as familiar as the first, a description of how the two subjects had moved to the tub and their passionate exploits there, all veiled in just enough metaphor and euphemism as to not be technically indecent although anybody who knew anything about fucking would easily divine the meaning. It wasn’t perfectly accurate, they certainly hadn’t gone for hours without pause but the line about moving to the drawers which followed matched perfectly to the events Geralt recalled.

And then there was a string of simple rising chords, leading into the chorus which once again supposedly gave voice to a _woman_ who’d had the fortune of bedding a Witcher.

His first impulse is to put a halt to the performance and thrash the bard for his intrusion, but years of monster hunting have taught him not to fall prey to focusing too hard on the obvious. This bard may be singing it, but between the style of the song and the detail of the knowledge being shared it’s clear that Jaskier hand has been instrumental in this, and Geralt suspects all the singer would be able to do was point a finger in that direction. They’d encountered him a few nights before, performing in the tavern they’d stopped at, and Jaskier has complicated opinions on copycats, but that the young man had called out whether the songs he was performing were his own (well sung, but even more lyrically questionable than Jaskier early works) or another’s, even before realising another bard was present, had earned him tolerance which had dimmed slightly at his excitement upon spotting Geralt, only to be not just restored but turned to friendship when the first thing he’d done was ask Geralt if Jaskier was travelling with him and lapsed into starry-eyed admiration when the bard introduced himself.

And clearly that had put Jaskier in a sharing mood.

Geralt doubts the star-struck youth had questions any part of Jaskier’s story, even as to how he’d had came to be so knowledgeable as to the experience of Geralt’s bed-partner, but he does need an answer.

He’s known Jaskier for long enough now to understand that at the core of his success is the truth in his songs. He might embellish and he certainly indulges in frivolous topics, but the writing is ultimately a form of self-expression and there’s honestly in the words he pens, though he often twists it around a melody so that it’s hard to tell what’s sincere from what’s merely for show.

But such a glaring inaccuracy cannot be overlooked.

Had Jaskier edited himself out because ashamed of this element of their relationship? It seemed unlikely. Jaskier had never shown shame about his past liaisons, even the exceedingly ill-advised ones, and he’d been plenty enthusiastic at the time. And if that was the case, why write anything at all? Did he think then, that Geralt might prefer people believed him to have a different sort of partner or a new bedmate in every village? It was true that he didn’t have Jaskier's demonstrative nature, but very few people in Geralt’s long lifetime had come close to the openness the bard showed and Jaskier surely understood that Geralt was less performative in his care because that was his way rather than due to any lack.

Once the song is over with a final rousing chorus, the singer moves on to other material, nothing related to Geralt, and so he finishes his pint and heads back to his room, waiting for Jaskier return.

There’s little to do but pack up for returning to the road, after the prolonged stop that had inspired the song Geralt is keen to be on the move for a while, but he’s not got far before the door opens.

“Jaskier.”

“What is it, Geralt?” the bard replies, juggling his purchases in an attempt to stack them nearly on the already cluttered desk. “Because I’m a little busy.”

“You wrote a song.”

“Uh... yes? I mean, yes. I’m a bard Geralt, that’s kind of what I do,” he points out, then hums a few bars of ‘toss a coin to your Witcher’ as if Geralt could ever forget the song which followed him everywhere and the success of which had outweighed all of his arguments as to why Jaskier shouldn’t follow him across the continent.

“Something rather more personal,” Geralt says, tightly. “And less factual. The bard downstairs was playing it earlier.”

“Ah… yes, well it’s still a draft really, but I think it’s going to go down a storm. Not to your taste?” he remarks, finally setting down the tower of packages. What on earth he intended to do with such a volume of objects, none of which were shaped like lute strings was beyond Geralt.

“Not particularly,” Geralt admits. He can indulge Jaskier from time to time, but no amount of affection could turn him into a sincere patron of the arts and no amount of babbling about inspiration seems to justify what he just heard.

“Don’t worry, I still plan to focus on more traditionally adventurous tales,” Jaskier assures him. “But when blessed by such a powerful muse one must obey, you understand?”

There’s no point dancing around his query. Jaskier might understand subtlety, but he generally feels perfectly free to ignore it “If you were so determined to share the tale,” Geralt presses. “Why not recount your own part in it honestly?”

“Couldn’t possibly,” Jaskier dismisses, as if Geralt had just suggested he run up a mountain before breakfast or fight a hoard of beasts alone. “It would undermine my artistic integrity if people knew we were sleeping together.”

Geralt stares. “What artistic integrity?” he points out, then, before Jaskier can work himself up into an offended fuss, “Surely that point is rather undermined by the fact you’re writing lies.”

“It’s mostly true,” Jaskier counters, which to Geralt’s mind is a problem in its own right – he’d grown to accept that being close to a bard meant other people knowing his business, but it was another thing altogether for Jaskier to give them everything they needed to work out his _measurements_. “But if I wrote myself into it then people might think I was biased. Or that it was the fact I’m sleeping with you and not my musical talents that won me the role of your personal chronicler.”

“You didn’t win anything,” Geralt reminds him. “You just wouldn’t leave.”

“You could have been the one to leave,” Jaskier argues. “But you didn’t. Although I supposed that might because running away from little old me wouldn’t be very brave Witcher-y.”

Geralt had attempted to do exactly that, actually, several times, but Jaskier had kept popping up like a bad penny and eventually Geralt had realised that attempting to avoid him was even more trouble than his presence. And giving Jaskier the inch of tolerating his presence had led to Jaskier taking a full league and somehow managing to grow on him. Which had admittedly worked out rather fortunately, although he was feeling less and less appreciative of the circumstances by the minute.

“Hold up,” Geralt says, spotting the flaw in Jaskier’s reasoning. “You wrote yourself quite prominently into that very first incident with the elves."

Jaskier flushes. It happened plenty from exertion but rarely from pure embarrassment and Geralt would find it charming, except for a moment later he reveals the reason to be, “An amateurish mistake. Acceptable at the time, I like to think it provides a sort of introduction and seal of authenticity to the fact the tales are coming first-hand, but I couldn’t well carry on that way. Nobody wants to hear bards singing about bards.”

“And you thought it was better that people think I was fucking some passing barmaid?” 

Jaskier’s brow creases. “It was a milkmaid,” he corrects. “It makes things more wholesome, y’know. If I wrote about a barmaid people would assume that by bar I meant brothel and—”

“That’s really not the point.”

“It’s a very salient point. You can’t pick faults with my song if you didn’t even listen to it properly. If you must insist on having such a ridiculous opinion—” Jaskier reaches for his lute “—it at least ought to be an informed one.”

“I do not want to hear you sing about my bedding an imaginary woman.”

Jaskier wrinkles his nose. “I suppose I could make it a man if you insist,” he offers. “Though it might raise suspicions since most of your history is with women, and I’d have to rework a few of the rhymes.”

His history was more varied than Jaskier perhaps realised, but, “I would prefer you didn’t write about our fucking at all.”

“But it’s a good song,” Jaskier protests. “I can’t help if I’m inspired.”

“Well turn your inspiration back to songs about monsters,” and fuck, was this all some ploy to get him to endorse Jaskier’s sagas by focusing his exasperation on a worse option? If so, the bard was playing Geralt as well as his did his lute, because it was a trade of Geralt was willing to make. “And no more imaginary milkmaids.” There was little room for concepts of honour in monster hunting, but Geralt had never been an adulterer and should the more personal elements of his relationship with the bard ever become public he didn’t want people remembering Jaskier’s ridiculous creative liberties and thinking Geralt had been straying with random passing women.

“Why?” Jaskier squints at him. “Oh, oh no, don’t tell me. You’re not _shy_ , are you?”

“Shy?” As if his preference was some sort of abnormal extreme. “No, but who would want--?” Wait. No. While he’d shifted around pronouns and physical descriptions, the other figure in the song was unmistakable written from Jaskier’s experience. Jaskier probably wouldn’t care a jot if a lover decided to write an ode to their shared experience; if anything, he’d probably preen. “Jaskier, no songs about sex.”

The firm tone was usually good for shutting people down. Jaskier just pouted. “It would be cruel,” he insisted, “to deny the listening public such a tale of triumph and thrill.”

“And you see no trouble in giving them the impression that one of the traits of a Witcher is absurd sexual prowess?”

“Is it not?” Jaskier blinks at him with deceptive innocence. “Oh, right, well done you, then.”

“Jaskier…”

“Alright, alright,” Jaskier says, throwing his hands up in the air. “I’ll try for something subtler next time. You’re right, next to the monster slaying it’s thematically jarring.”

That’s likely the best compromise he’s going to get. Geralt drags Jaskier towards the bed. If Jaskier is going to write about it anyway, Geralt may as well indulge them both in some fresh inspiration.


End file.
